Posts by gwen

We are at a critical and terrifying moment for economic justice organizing. With the election of far-right Donald Trump and an incoming veto-proof Republican majority in the Pennsylvania Senate, we at Philadelphia Jobs with Justice are preparing for an unprecedented assault on our rights in our workplaces and our communities.

At both national and state levels, we can expect regressive legislation targeting women, wage workers, seniors, people of color, immigrants, and many more.

We take this threat extremely seriously. That's why, in the coming year, we’ll be using a five-point plan to work on city, state, and federal levels, fighting back against pro-corporate and unjust legislation.

1. We will actively resist Donald Trump’s discriminatory and anti-worker agenda, at his inauguration on January 20th and beyond.

Philadelphia Jobs with Justice has already been a visible presence at many of the anti-Trump protests that followed the election, and we’re committed to continuing to stand loudly and publicly in opposition to the ways the Trump agenda will hurt working people. We’re already preparing to work with our members to get activists down to Washington, D.C. to take our message of social and economic justice to Trump’s inauguration on January 20th.

2. We will fight back against public acceptance or tolerance of the kind of sexual harassment and assault that Donald Trump has freely admitted to committing.

In 2017, Philadelphia Jobs with Justice will be working with feminist allies like Philadelphia National Organization for Women and Coalition for Labor Union Wwomen to launch a new project: Organizing Now to Prevent Assault and Rape (ON PAR). ON PAR will provide resources for our member and ally organizations to help them develop sexual assault policies for conferences and conventions, and offer the opportunity to publicly pledge to implement this kind of policy.

3. We will stand with our labor and community allies in solidarity in their fights against discriminatory Trump administration policy.

Over the course of his campaign, Donald Trump has time and time again proposed immoral and discriminatory policies concerning everyone from women to Muslims to immigrant communities. We will stand with and support our allies and neighbors as they resist these initiatives, not just with our words, but with our feet on the street.

4. We will hold our elected officials accountable for how they respond to and vote on anti-worker or discriminatory legislations.

Over the years, we’ve consistently stood up to and called out politicians that vote against worker and community interests. In 2017 we’ll double down, using everything from letters to protests to call campaigns to office visits to make sure our elected representatives know that they can’t get away with tossing our interests under the bus to please corporate interests or endear themselves to the Trump administration.

5. We will organize and win victories on a local level to make sure that Philadelphia is doing everything it can to support the working communities and neighborhoods that will be under attack at state and federal levels.

Many of Trump’s proposed initiatives will seek take money away from those who need it most. Now more than ever, we’ll be fighting to make sure that major corporations and mega-nonprofits pay their fair share towards schools and public services in our communities.

As we face unprecedented threats against our communities and our values, Philadelphia Jobs with Justice is as committed as ever to fighting back and standing up for workers and working communities’ rights and dignity.

We switched databases, so we have to sign all our usual sustainers up again. But instead of crying about it, we're having a party! It'll be a good one, too. We'll have great people, and an open wine and beer bar.

We're requesting a $15 suggested contribution at the door, or (even better!) for folks to sign up to become monthly sustainers. Hope you can make it!

This year's awards will be a celebration to remember! Join us as we thank community leaders George Ricchezza,Ken Washington, and Karen Schermerhorn for their tireless advocacy, organizing, and community base-building. We'll also be celebrating our champions for justice from City Hall, Bill Greenlee and Wilson Goode, Jr. for their hard work fighting for a better city for working people.

These leaders are committed to fighting the good fight for working Philadelphians, and we're proud to be honoring them. Don't miss this chance to celebrate the people and organizations that win victories for working people in our city!

Here in Philly, mega-nonprofits like U. Penn and Jefferson make billions a year, use city services, take up tremendous amounts of valuable land--yet they pay almost nothing in the property taxes that fund our our schools and city services like firefighting and street repair.

By reinstating a PILOT (payments in lieu of taxes) program like the one then-Mayor Rendell ran in the 1990's, Mayor Kenney could raise $38 million for public schools and services.

Our schools are in dire straits, and need this funding more than ever.

The mayor will deliver his budget plan for 2017 in March, and it's critical that PILOTs be part of that plan. Every year with out PILOTs is a year we give up $38 million that could be going directly into Philly classrooms.

On Wednesday, April 14th, at3:00 pm, Jobs with Justice, Philly Coalition of Labor Union Women, and SLAP @ Penn will be joining Fight for 15’s national day of action. We'll join community members, fast food workers, clergy, and working families standing together to demand that fast food franchises pay their employees enough to live--at least $15 an hour.

McDonald’s is already feeling the pressure. Earlier this month, they tried to undermine the national day of action by enacting a slight, stingy pay raise--nowhere close to what these workers need. Let's keep the fight hot and let these fast food corporations know that their workers deserve a living wage, not pocket change!

We need you out there with us! Here's how to join:

• At 3 pm, we’ll rally at the McDonald’s at 40th and Walnut, one of the busiest McDonald's franchises in the city.• At 4 pm, we’ll start marching down Walnut towards the citywide convergence site at 30th & Market.• If you can’t make it at 3 pm, you can still make the citywide convergence at 30th and Market; it's set to begin at 4:30 pm.

What version of Martin Luther King, Jr. do you remember learning in grade school?

If your experience was anything like mine, it was a sanitized King story, heavy on children holding hands and light on the measured, strategic brilliance. It was also an isolated, finished King story: a "great man" narrative in the distant past, where the multitude of faces marching behind and beside him are barely noticed or acknowledged.

But the real, extraordinary story of King isn't just the story of an individual. It's the story of an entire movement for social justice, a radical one driven by thousands upon thousands who risked, and continue to risk, their well-being and even their lives to organize for a better world. It's the story of a fight for equality that continues today. King's true greatness lay in his ability to understand, articulate, and live that vision.

This MLK Day, I hope you'll join us and our many allies on the MLK Day of Action, Resistance, and Empowerment March (MLK DARE), as we live that fight in our world today. We'll march for an end to stop and frisk, a $15 minimum wage, the right to organize, and a fully funded and democratically controlled school system.

King told us that the arc of the moral universe curves towards justice, but he also made it clear that the arc curves only because we organize together to bend it. This coming Monday, let's honor King's legacy by continuing that work.

Nine days ago, the Corbett-controlled School Reform Commission sunk to a new low. In a surprise blow to students, teachers, parents, and community activists, they unilaterally declared the contract of PFT 3 (Philly's teacher union) canceled, leaving our schools vulnerable to even more dangerous cuts.

When the SRC meets next Thursday, thousands of us will be at their door for the "Turn Up for Truth Rally,"calling out Corbett and his SRC cronies and letting them know that this callous move cannot stand.

We can't let passers-by and the media think these people are for real. So Philly JwJ will be there at the rally, holding a counter counter-protest. We'll be birddogging the "faux-testers" with identifying signs so no one mistakes them for anything more than hired actors.

Hope to see you there. Philly schools need our help now more than ever.

P.S.: We're making signs now, but if you have the time, we could use your help! Bring posters with or shaped like arrows. (Make sure the language identifies the person as "hired counter-protestor"--we don't want anyone to get confused and think we're calling our allies fake.)

Philly Jobs with Justice's Saturday, May 31st: community forum “U. Penn: Is It Paying Its Fair Share?” at Monumental Baptist Church on 50th & Locust drew nearly a hundred neighbors and allies. After testimony from PCCY executive director Donna Cooper, long-time Philadelphia resident Charles Clark, and U. Penn professor Mary Summers, attendees broke out into small groups to discuss the issue of U. Penn giving back to the community through PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) payments for schools and essential services. After coming together and listening to each other's stories, the response was overwhelming: U. Penn isn’t paying its fair share, and PILOTs could begin to remedy that.

Since May, more than a dozen Jobs with Justice volunteers have spent weekends knocking on doors in West and Southwest Philly, asking community members to sign on in calling on Amy Gutmann to make U. Penn pay its fair share-- and hundreds of neighbors already have.

Services in the city of Philadelphia are being slashed, and our communities are suffering because of it. Are we to go without quality services while those at U. Penn not pay taxes? Of course not. We are all in this city together - we all take, and we should all give back, U. Penn included.